Culture

This article originally appeared on Avvo.com.Many Americans are looking to slim down and promote overall health and wellness in 2015. Although not a bad goal, health-related resolutions leave consumers vulnerable to the onslaught of fad diets, weight-loss products and flab reducers that infiltrate the market after the holiday season.

If Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch opts to display any obscene gestures during the Super Bowl (AKA, his crotch grab during the playoffs), NFL officials say referees will tack on a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Lynch had previously been fined around $30,000 for his PG-13 gestures.

Long, long ago in 2011, a Huffington Post trends and traffic editor was busy analyzing words and phrases that people were searching on the Internet. This editor would then write posts using that data in order to get them to appear in Google's top-ranked search results.

Roommate ready: At the Super Bowl in Arizona, all players are granted their own hotel rooms, but Russell Wilson prefers not to break tradition. He’ll continue to room with Seahawks running back and fullback Robert Turbin, as he does at all away games during the regular season. “It's not a superstition,” Wilson told MyNorthwest.com. “It's just I believe in great habits.”

Must ScreenChildren's Film Festival at Northwest Film Forum(1/22 to 2/7, times vary) Seattle’s most surprising film festival celebrates its 10th year, with more than 175 kid-oriented flicks from nearly 50 countries. With documentaries, animation, feature films and shorts, there is plenty here to keep grown-ups occupied while the younger set mingles.

If you were a kid in the early 1970s, you likely spent Saturday mornings sprawled on the living room floor in front of cartoons—and just as likely, you were unaware of the radical act taking place on the tube. But 40 years ago, Josie and the Pussycats, The Harlem Globetrotters and The Jackson 5ive were among the first television cartoons to feature positive black characters.

“The first thing that got kicked off the budget was the flying rig,” says filmmaker Webster Crowell. A contraption that facilitates the illusion that actors are flying would have come in handy on Rocketmen, his retro sci-fi adventure story, but this is a low-budget, seven-episode Web series. So the flying rig went out the window—as did the street pigeon Crowell attempted to enlist in a scene. Turns out it was faster for him to build a fake bird and film it in exacting stop-motion (his specialty) than to get a real pigeon to follow cues.

Downtown crime: A shooting last night around 8 p.m. at Second Avenue and Pine Street left two men wounded. According to King 5 news, witnesses said they heard "between 12 and 20 shots." There is still no word on who the gunman might be or the reason for the attack.

Never say die! When The Goonies—the cult favorite 1985 film set in Astoria, Oregon—turned 25 in 2010, mayor Willis Van Dusen declared that June 7 (the film’s original release date) would officially be Goonies Day in Astoria from thenceforth. As the film toasts to 30 years this summer, the seaside city is pulling out all the stops for festivities this June 4 to 7, which will warrant a three-hour road trip south for diehards—and perhaps for anyone raised in the ‘80s.

Remember when gas was like super expensive and everyone was all "bro, don't buy that Hummer H3!"? Frivolous car trips were a thing of the past and mass transit passes became de rigueur. Well, guess what: The party's over. Now that the price at the pump has decreased, we can expect more gridlock as more people abandon fuel-saving methods. According to King 5, "The latest data shows in September and November, a $0.05 decrease in the gas price year-over-year corresponds to around 10% increase in traffic congestion.

When tweets go awry: Yes, the entire state of Washington was thrilled over the Seahawks incredible comeback over the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game. But let's not get too carried away. Yesterday, the Seattle Seahawks' Twitter handle tweeted out a photo of a teary Russell Wilson juxtaposed with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. and the phrase "We Shall Overcome," essentially trying to tie the team's big win to, well, Dr. King and the Civil Rights movement.

Seattle is booming. Newcomers are swarming to town. A largely male workforce is spending big, driving up rents and real estate prices, but no one wants to complain as the good times roll; after all, the boom is following a bust that temporarily slowed Seattle’s growth plans. The transportation system is expanding—streetcars, bike lanes and new roadways are being built to handle the heavy traffic. Downtown is getting denser. The newly redeveloped waterfront is bustling. Nightlife is flourishing.